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Old 10-04-2004, 03:07 PM   #1
BrianK
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Can I switch RAID controller cards without losing data?


I'm fed up with my file server. I believe the poor performance may have something to do with the RAID controller card (Promise Fastrack 150 SX4, if you're interested).

If I switch out the controller card & setup the new card (from a different manufacturer) to the same mode (RAID 5, in my case), will the data still be there, or do different cards have different methods of spanning disks?

There's currently about 600 Gigs of data on the disks, so a backup is somewhat out of the question.

Last edited by BrianK; 10-04-2004 at 03:08 PM.
 
Old 10-04-2004, 05:18 PM   #2
jtshaw
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Probably not. If I am not mistaken the Pormise Fastrack 150 SX4 is a software based (but probably hardware accelerated) RAID controller. If that is the case then it probably wouldn't be compatible with any other controller. If you were to get a card like a 3ware (really nice... I recommend them) hardware raid controller it probably wouldn't be able to deal with the formatting on the disks.

Your best bet to make sure no data goes missing is to save your data somewhere else and do a complete format and reinstall on a new raid adapter. If you are worried about performance make sure you get a hardware based raid adapter like the 3ware SATA Raid controllers.
 
Old 10-04-2004, 09:14 PM   #3
BrianK
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Quote:
Originally posted by jtshaw
Probably not....
I figured as much. Hindsight being 20/20, I would have paid the extra $200 to get the 3ware. Live and learn.

Thanks for the info.
 
  


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